Tiamat's Wrath

Chapter Forty-Six: Elvi

Going through Cortázar’s hidden files was the work of days. It was horrifying. Winston Duarte had believed in Cortázar’s ability, but more than that, he’d assumed that he had the man’s loyalty. And that the things Cortázar told him were true. The experiment to change Duarte’s body using the tamed protomolecule had been the worst kind of science—uncontrolled, unethical, speculative, and risky. He had overstated his certainty to Duarte, underplayed the risks, moved ahead on therapies based on best-guess understandings of Cara and Xan, and collected data obsessively. His notes and records read like a horror story.

As the unexpected changes had come—Duarte no longer needing sleep, developing new senses—Cortázar’s comments shifted. Elvi wasn’t sure the man himself would have seen it, but a plaintive quality started coming into them. A sense of jealousy about all the things he could only experience secondhand. A hunger was growing in Cortázar’s mind that he didn’t seem aware of.

Elvi tried to go though it all in more or less chronological order, but that was harder than it sounded. For one thing, the enemy fleet in Laconia system shook her concentration. Trejo was reassuring. No more antimatter was missing, and the mere nuclear warheads raining down on the planet were a trivial danger, easily avoided. Elvi started having nightmares about it, and her sleep suffered.

Also, chronology wasn’t how Cortázar had structured his work. Notes and results on the protomolecule-modified telomerases that had been one of the first steps were in the same files as preliminary scans and data on Teresa Duarte. NIR and magnetic scans of Cara and Xan from his initial research had annotations about Duarte’s blood protein structures from as recently as the day before Cortázar died.

There were some advantages. Bouncing back and forth in time, Elvi began to feel the shape not only of Cortázar’s obsession but also of the path he’d gone through. The change. His earliest notes on Teresa had been much like his plan for Duarte with some variations. His decision to instead kill her and give her to the repair drones hadn’t come until fairly recently.

It was almost out of character too. Everything she saw about Cortázar had been about pushing forward, trying things that were new. He was a discoverer at heart, and the choice to pull back and study something foundational more deeply was unlike him.

It was a long time before she figured out who had convinced him to change from his usual strategy.

When she did, she only told Fayez.

“Holden?” her husband said, incredulous. “James Holden put Cortázar up to killing Teresa?”

“I don’t know,” Elvi said. “I think so. Maybe.”

They were getting ready for Teresa’s birthday party. The dress Elvi had ordered up was a yellow that had looked good on the screen, but she wasn’t sure about it now. It was the first time she’d seen Fayez in days. She’d been going to the labs early and leaving them late. Would have done so again if Trejo weren’t insisting on keeping up appearances. Between Duarte’s conspicuous absence and the breaking news that the enemy had gutted a destroyer called the Mammatus, it was a harder and harder job.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, but the way he said it meant he believed her. “Why? Why would he do that?”

The note hadn’t been hidden. It was in with Teresa’s medical scans and blood data, as simple and open as a reminder to get fresh socks. Holden’s argument correct? Consider restarting protocol with additional subject. And every note after that, wherever it had been added, assumed that Teresa Duarte began the process already dead. Another note seemed to be a list of talking points for breaking the news to the high consul.

With your life span, she was going to die before you did anyway.

The important thing is that we learn as much as we can from her death sacrifice.

Children die in nature all the time. This is just like that.

But the one she kept returning to was Holden’s argument correct?

“She was … is heir to the empire,” Elvi said. “If Cortázar turned her into a lab rat, it might destabilize Laconia. Take away the clear line of succession?”

“That’s an awfully long game,” Fayez said, pulling on his shoes. “It explains how Holden knew. But then why did he warn us?”

“Couldn’t go through with it?” Elvi said. “Holden’s a decent person. Decent people have trouble with murdering children. Second thoughts. Doubts. I don’t know. I don’t understand anything anymore.”

“That’s the thing about alien biologies and transdimensional monsters,” Fayez sighed. “At least they’re not supposed to make sense.”

Elvi sighed in agreement and looked at herself in the mirror. Her leg was healed in that it didn’t hurt, but the gouge the aliens had left in it still showed. A lighter patch of skin with a puckered edge.

“Pass me the cane?” Fayez asked. And then, as she did, “Are you going to tell Trejo about it?”

“I don’t know. I’m not going to keep it from him, but … Cortázar’s dead and Holden’s under guard. There’s nothing for Trejo to do about it, and he’s juggling enough already. How do I look? Do I look like a wrapped candy? I feel like I’m dressed up as caramel chocolate.”

“You look beautiful,” Fayez said, rising to his feet. “You always do. Also, that you care at all what any of these people think is charming beyond words.”

“What makes you think I care about what they think?” she said. “I asked you.”

He laughed and stepped close to her. She put her arms around his chest, leaned her head against his shoulder, closed her eyes.

“I hate this,” she whispered. “I hate all of this so much. I’m so tired of being scared and overwhelmed.”

“I know. I’m a little adrenaline-sick myself. Maybe we should leave.”

She chuckled. “Tender my resignation? Say I’m exploring options elsewhere? Maybe go back to teaching.”

“I’m serious,” Fayez said. “You still have command codes for the Falcon, don’t you?”

She pulled back to look him in the eyes. He wasn’t joking. She knew all his smiles, and this was a serious one.

“There are two separate navies out there ready to shoot us down,” she said.

“Maybe. Or maybe we could defect. Or just run and take our chances. It couldn’t be worse. This place is made out of palace intrigue and fear as much as it is concrete. And that’s before it was the target of an ongoing rebellion looking to nuke it to glass. Say you’re going to look for residual transdimensional radioactive ectoplasm or something. They won’t know. With the shooting war going on, they’re not going to come after little old us. We could make a break for it.”

It was crazy, and worse, it was tempting. Elvi imagined waking up under some other sun. In a hut on a mountain on a world without a name.

“You’ve wanted out since you got here,” Fayez said. “You’ve put a brave face on it, and I have too. But this is killing you by centimeters.”

“Let me think,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

They walked to the ballroom together. For a quinceañera, there weren’t many teenagers. Even as large as the room was, Elvi felt like the air was close, stale, rebreathed. She got a glass of wine, hardly aware of who she’d gotten it from. Pulled by her exhaustion, trying to make sense of Holden, her fear of the fighting in the system, and the beautiful dream of leaving Laconia behind, she was in a fog.

“Is everything all right?”

Teresa Duarte was at her side. Elvi had been aware the girl was speaking, but she hadn’t listened. “Fine. Everything’s fine.”

Teresa smirked. “Well. Except.”

“Yes. Except.”

The dinner chime came, and Elvi tried to move away, but Teresa stayed at her side. The girl was working herself up to something. With a forced casualness, Teresa said, “I was wondering, Dr. Okoye. The Falcon.”

Elvi felt a chill of fear. “What about it?”

“I wondered how the repairs were going. With everything that’s going on …” The girl put on a smile that was meant to be calming. Innocuous. “I mean, it is built for sustained high burn. It has breathable liquid crash couches.”

“Those are unpleasant,” Fayez said, trying to move the subject away.

Teresa would not be turned aside. “But still. If the fighting got close? You’d be able to use it to get away?”

Elvi glanced at Fayez. His expression went blank. So he was wondering it too. They’d been in their private rooms, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be monitored. Was Trejo watching them? Was this a test?

“Unfortunately,” Elvi said, choosing her words carefully, “the Falcon was deeply, deeply compromised.”

Fayez followed suit. “I got a new foot, toenails and all, but that ship’s still in pieces.”

Teresa’s expression shifted, but Elvi wasn’t sure what it had shifted into. Elvi kept going, saying the things someone who had never thought of fleeing would say. “I really don’t think it’ll come to evacuation. None of those ships are even going to get close to the planet. And everything Admiral Trejo has at his disposal will be used to keep us all safe.”

“Maybe you should put a push on the repairs, then,” Teresa said, harshly. As if there is anything I would rather do, Elvi thought, and chuckled.

“Maybe I should,” she said as they entered the dining hall. Teresa finally had to go her own way. It felt like escaping something. Fayez put his arm around her waist and let himself be guided to their table.

“That was uncomfortable,” he said.

“Don’t read too much into it,” Elvi said as they found their chairs. “Also? Don’t forget it.”

The dinner proceeded, the conversations stayed on safe ground. Elvi put Holden and his role in Cortázar’s murder plot out of her mind. She didn’t think of it again for weeks, and by then things were already out of control.

“Holden escaped,” Ilich shouted. The speaker on her hand terminal overloaded a little, flattening his voice. She tried to bring herself back to consciousness. It was hard to believe she’d actually drifted off, but the dreams still had their claws in her.

“The attack,” she said.

“They’re here. They’re fighting right now, and Holden’s free.”

She sat up on her bed. She was still wearing her uniform, though it was creased from sleep. She rubbed the back of her neck with an open palm. Holden was out of his cell at the same moment that the underground’s strike force was engaging with the defense grid. There was no way that could be coincidence. Somehow, he’d known it was coming. And he was getting out before the bombs hit the State Building.

Her gut clenched. The fear that had been growing since the enemy’s gambit became clear tightened her gut. I’m going to die. Fayez is going to die. We’re not going to see dawn.

“Tell Trejo,” she said. “You need to tell Trejo.”

“He’s busy commanding the defenses. Holden stunned the guards. They’re still unconscious.”

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “What do you want me to do about it?”

Ilich stammered for a few seconds. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Secure the pocket nuke that’s in the same facility, then get a security team and start looking for him,” Elvi said.

“Yes,” Ilich said. “Right.”

He dropped the connection. Fayez was sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes wide and alarmed.

“That man,” Elvi said, “is not great in a crisis. I’m starting to think he’s got the wrong job.”

“Elvi,” Fayez said. “Holden. Teresa.”

It only took a moment. “Shit.”

She went for the door, Fayez close behind her. The air was cold and wet and stinging. It numbed her face instantly. Flakes of snow swirled down from the sky like ashes from a huge fire. The distant ground-based rail guns made a constant rolling thunder, and the clouds flickered red and orange in the north as they fired. Far above the clouds, a battle was going on. Elvi put her head down and ran. Fayez came along just behind her, his footsteps falling in and out of sync with her own.

An alarm sounded, screaming out across the State Building and its compound. She didn’t know if it was about the war or the escaped prisoner.

At Teresa’s rooms, she pounded the door with her fist and shouted the girl’s name, but the only answer was frantic barking. The thunder of the planetary defenses grew louder, almost deafening. Something terribly bright happened somewhere above the clouds and turned the white snow-struck landscape to noon for three long seconds.

“We need to take shelter,” Fayez said, and Elvi kicked Teresa’s door. Fayez did too. It seemed like it wouldn’t be enough. They’d beat themselves against it forever and never get through. And then the frame gave way, the door slammed inward, and Teresa’s dog ran out into the night, barking madly.

“Get inside,” Fayez shouted, but Elvi was already following the dog. It bounded through the fallen snow, throwing up ice like dust. Its bark was urgent, and it led Elvi on. She couldn’t feel her feet well, and her wounded leg burned and ached, but one foot went in front of the other.

Snowfall and the battle light had changed the gardens into a vision of hell. She didn’t know where she was, didn’t know where the State Building was, couldn’t tell where she was going, except that she was following the trail of paw prints and broken snow.

She should have gotten a gun. She was a major. Someone would have given her one if she’d asked. Better, she should have called Ilich and the security team. It was too late, though. She couldn’t turn back, and she had to believe that the James Holden she knew would listen to her. Would hear her. Would stop whatever his plan was before the girl got hurt.

The dog vanished into the gloom ahead, barking and howling. She’d been stupid. She’d been overworked. Duarte and Cortázar and the war and the things from beyond time and space. They’d overwhelmed her and she’d lost sight of the girl who was right in front of her and the man who’d planned to kill her.

All the panic and the fear and the driving need to flee distilled into this moment, this doomed rush, the snow, and the howls of the dog.

And voices.

“Stop!” Elvi shouted, and her voice was hoarse. “Holden, stop!”

The trail led almost to the fence. High in the darkness, the mountain beyond the State Building reared up, transformed by snow and darkness into a vast gray wave. And there, in a snow-filled gully, James Holden stood in a black guard’s uniform. His hair was wild and his skin was pale except for two bright-red patches at the cheeks where the cold had bitten him.

The dog capered and yapped at his side, and Holden raised a hand like he was seeing an unexpected friend at a cocktail party. But there was another voice. Teresa’s voice, scolding the dog and telling it to be quiet.

“Holden,” Elvi gasped. Now that she was slowing down, her side hurt like someone was stabbing her. “Holden, stop. Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” he said. And then, “Are you okay?”

“Let her go. It won’t fix anything to hurt her.”

Holden’s forehead furrowed, and for a moment, she could see the young man he’d been the first time she’d met him, decades ago on a different planet. She held tight to the chance he might still be the same man, somewhere deep inside.

“Hurt who?” he said, and pointed at Teresa. “Her?”

“I know what you did,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “I know you put Cortázar up to it.”

“We have to go,” Teresa said. Elvi noticed for the first time that the girl was doing something in the gully. Digging away a drift of fallen snow. Holden’s sleeves were crusted with ice where he’d been doing the same.

“She’s just a kid, Holden. Whatever your plan is, she doesn’t have to be part of it.”

“I’m more part of her plan at this point,” he said.

“We have to go!” Teresa said. “We don’t have time for this. Muskrat! Shut up!”

The dog wagged, happily ignoring the order. Footsteps came from behind Elvi. Fayez, stumbling through the snow. A deep, rolling sound came from the north. The earth trembled, and the rail-gun flashes stopped. Without their voices, the night seemed weirdly silent.

“What’s going on?” Fayez said.

“I’m leaving,” Teresa said. “I’m trading their prisoner for a way out, and I’m leaving. His ship is coming for us right now, and we have to get to the rendezvous.”

“He tried to get you killed,” Elvi said. “You can’t trust him.”

“I can’t trust anyone,” Teresa said, and the weariness and bitterness in her voice belonged to a much older woman.

“No,” Holden said. “That wasn’t about Teresa. That was about you. Hey, Fayez.”

“Hey, Holden,” Fayez said, and dropped to his knees at Elvi’s side. Snowflakes landed on his hair and stayed there, unmelting.

“I don’t understand.”

“This has all been about you,” Holden said. “Literally from the minute I found out about the alien rip-in-space thing that showed up on the Tempest, I’ve been trying to get Cortázar out and you in his place. All this?” He gestured at the now-quiet sky. “I don’t know anything about it. I haven’t been in touch with anybody. None of it’s been me.”

Elvi shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I got you the job,” Holden said. “I’m the one who told Duarte you’d been studying what killed the protomolecule engineers. And yes, I talked Cortázar into getting himself in trouble. And then I tried to rat him out. It was the only thing I could think of that Duarte would care about enough to get rid of his pet mad scientist. And since you were the expert, you’d get the promotion.”

The punch in her chest was betrayal. She felt betrayed. She’d seen Sagale and Travon die because of Holden. She’d almost lost her leg, almost lost her husband, suffered through everything because of him. “Why would you do this to me?”

“I wanted to get someone sane and rational in charge before Duarte did something stupid that we couldn’t take back.” He lifted his hands and then let them fall, a gesture of powerlessness. “I’m not sure it worked, but it was all I could do.”

Teresa stood up. Her black sweater was white with ice. “We can get through. The space is big enough. But the second I’m off the grounds, security’s going to know it. We can’t stop running once we start.”

Holden nodded, but his eyes were on Elvi. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Make up for it. We’re here. Take us with you. And in the other half of her mind, the labs. The pens. The Falcon and all the data she’d acquired with it, still waiting to be sifted through. Was Ochida going to take it up if she left? Would he be better than Cortázar?

Was there anyone, anywhere she’d trust with this more than she trusted herself? And the enemy—the deep enemy—had tried to hurt them already. Was looking for a way. Her leg throbbed like it was reminding her of the black things between the spaces. Was someone else going to stop them?

She looked at Holden’s face. He was one of those men who was going to look boyish until the day he died. Fuck you for putting me in this position, she thought. Fuck you for making this the right thing for me to do.

It wasn’t what she said aloud.

“Go.”